Today we gathered some of the top mobile enterprise analysts for their expert opinions on enterprise mobility in 2015. Lets get right into it.
1) What are your top 3 hints for CIOs dealing with enterprise mobility in 2015?
[HAZELTON]
- For all IT projects in 2015, if not mobile first – at the very least mobile compatible. It is a lot to ask for IT to go mobile first, particularly when users are not quite ready to ditch their laptops. That said, there will be significant growth in enterprise mobile apps in 2015 (but see question #3 below).
- Embrace business unit development of mobile apps – while at the same time providing a path to consistency for app development and provisioning across the company.
- BYOD is not all its cracked up to be. There are very rarely cost savings from BYOD. For companies and divisions of companies that are serious about mobile – the cost saving from not buying the device will not offset some of the challenges that come with heterogeneous device environments. We may see companies standardizing on a popular consumer device to alleviate security and management concerns.
[LOPEZ]
- Job one: Securing content that gets mobile enabled.
- Job two: Prioritizing what needs to be mobile enabled and defining the best part of apps work flows to mobile enable.
- Job three: Finding a way to scale mobile app development.
[FEATHERSTON]
- Focus on user experience not the device. People are mobile and the devices are simply the conduit. Whether it’s employees or customers, we are a mobile society and devices are the tools that help the ‘mobile individual’ be more productive. Work with the users to understand how they work and provide value.
- Don’t just play defense. Many enterprise mobile strategies are nothing more than protection from mobile devices. System and data security are an important part of any enterprise mobility strategy, but should not be the only part. Defense only strategies also perpetuate the perception of IT as the ‘group that says no’. Your strategy should encompass the ecosystem, balancing value and risk, and explaining the tradeoffs to the business.
- Mobility strategy is not optional; it’s the price of admission. The mobile genie is out of the bottle. If you don’t have a mobility strategy in place, shadow IT groups will form and develop one independently of IT. You must work with users, provide value, and explain the benefits and risks. A successful strategy is developed with the business and finds the right balance for your company.
[FEATHERSTON]Wearables is a very broad term that can mean different things to different folk. The business use cases for enterprise wearables tend to be very industry specific, such as healthcare, fitness, public safety and potentially even field service and repair. In 2015 we will start seeing early adoption and pilots of various types of wearable technologies, especially in those industries
- Healthcare & Fitness –The ability to monitor an individual’s health (heart rate, blood pressure, glucose, etc.) and provide feedback to that individual or healthcare provider is one of the fastest growing areas of the wearable technology. Expect this trend to continue strongly in 2015.
- Public safety – One area that can make a strong business case for heads up displays (e.g. Google Glass) is public safety. Prototype applications are being developed for firefighters to show blueprints of buildings as then enter them and also provide visuals and health monitoring. In law enforcement, body cams and heads up displays can provide up to date information and record events.-Field service, repair
- Heads up displays are being explored in field service and repair, especially in the petroleum industry, where hands on repair while referencing critical data could have a huge impact.
[LOPEZ]Google glass as a concept will live on but another company will make it a reality. I’ve attached a wearables report:
- “While other research reports focused on consumer wearable adoption, the September 2014 Lopez Research survey asked 300 enterprise IT leaders for their options on wearable use within their companies. In our survey, we defined wearables as smart watches, wristbands, and glasses. We omitted heads up displays and badge devices.”
- “Nine months ago, only three percent of the organizations that we interviewed were interested in wearable technology in the enterprise.
Today, over a third (34%) of the companies we interviewed are interested in using wearables while only five percent were evaluating wearables. None of the companies in our survey had deployed wearables.”
[HAZELTON]In 2015 we will see the initial role out of Google Glass deployments in the healthcare space that will eventually exceed 200k devices. An unrelated example use case in hospitals is with new mothers that have complications can’t often visit their baby in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for several days. Today, hospitals are using iPads with Skype. Wearables will improve this interaction significantly as mothers can get a first person view of holding their child remotely from the safety of they hospital bed.
[HAZELTON]Taking control of enterprise apps in 2015 more so than 2014. We will see greater enterprise app usage in 2015 driven by screen size – but why in 2015 and not earlier? The iPhone is the most popular enterprise device (in the US). With Apple’ iPhone 6 pairing large screen smartphones with the most popular app platform for enterprise development, we will see greater demand for smartphone apps in 2015. To put this in perspective the iPhone 6 Plus screen area is equal to more than two iPhone 4S screens (they’re still out there in large numbers), as its screen real-estate is 128% larger than the iPhone 4S, and 95% larger than the iPhone 5S (iPhone 6 is two-thirds larger than the 4S, and 42% larger than 5S). This significant additional screen real estate will allow employees to get work done on their enterprise smartphones with enterprise apps.
[FEATHERSTON]
- Embrace mobile – It is critical for business success. Your business users already have and will bypass IT if you don’t help them obtain business value from the mobile workforce and customer base.
- Understand the data impact – Mobile tech and wearables result in more inbound and outbound data. Who owns the data? Where is the data stored? What will you do with the data? Lots of data with no analytics just consumes bandwidth and storage.
- Be ready to change – Accept the fact that the plans and priorities you define could be turned on their head overnight. Technology changes are moving at breakneck speeds, and you need to be nimble enough to adjust course quickly.
[LOPEZ]Mobilizing apps, getting content on to apps (MCM) , securing apps not just devices. Over 70% of the companies we interviewed said they’d be mobile enabling 10 or more apps in2015 So a big shift from email to enabling apps and processes that matter. 75% said security was a top concern .
A big thanks to all the mobile enterprise & mobile app experts! At this time we highly recommend following our Enterprise Mobility in 2015 panel.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://451research.com/images/Marketing/headshots/Hazelton_Chris_2013.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Chris Hazelton is a research director at 451 Research, and all around mobility expert. When he isnt public speaking on mobile he is studying the shift of enterprise workers computing from desktop to mobile. Get his updates on Twitter and 451research Blog[/author_info] [/author]
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/480052959/Lopez.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Maribel Lopez contributes to Forbes and is the CEO for Lopez Research a consulting firm that specializes in communications technologies with a heavy emphasis on the disruptive nature of mobile technologies. I’d recommend following her on twitter.[/author_info] [/author]
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000425113182/8118df59baa04118c90dabceb8ffd107_400x400.jpeg[/author_image] [author_info]Ed Featherston is an Enterprise Architect expert at Collaborative Consulting, a business and information technology services firm that provides full lifecycle support to architect, plan, and implement technology-driven solutions. Catch his latest updates on Twitter or onCollaborative.com’s blog. [/author_info] [/author]
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://media.licdn.com/media/p/4/000/16d/110/1470210.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Daniel DiMassa [Moderator] builds enterprise apps at InnoviMobile, blogs at EnterpriseAdoption and is obsessed with tweeting about mobile apps at @TheDiMassa[/author_info] [/author]
